(PDF) (DOC) (JPG)December 22, 2015

(MAHWAH, NJ) – The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies of Ramapo College and Temple Beth Haverim Shir Shalom of Mahwah, New Jersey held a Kristallnacht (Crystal Night) commemoration on Monday, November 9. The event took place at Beth Haverim Shir Shalom and was attended by 110 community members and students

The commemoration featured a talk by Dr. Joanne Intrator, who spoke about her pursuit of restitution for Wallstrasse 16, a Berlin center-city property stolen by the Nazis. The case was complicated by the fact that the family who wrested the building from Dr. Intrator’s grandfather and other relatives also mounted a restitution claim, since the property had been in the eastern part of the city that was part of the communist German Democratic Republic. They asserted that Dr. Intrator’s grandfather was forced to sell the building to their German father because he was a poor businessman and not because he was the object of anti-Jewish persecution.  As a consequence, in order to prevail in her family’s claim, Dr. Intrator sought the help of a noted U.S. attorney and a firm of investigators who established how exactly the German had acquired her family’s property, including the key circumstance of his Nazi Party membership.

The story of her family’s plight under the Nazis has been included in a special exhibit of the City Museum of Berlin. Under the title, “Stolen Heart,” it will travel to New York next February and will be on display at The Center for Jewish History under the auspices of the Leo Baeck Institute.

Joanne Intrator, a New York City-based psychiatrist, earned her medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University.   A regular contributor to The Journal for the Study of Antisemitism, Dr. Intrator has spoken about Holocaust and restitution issues at many places in Germany as well as in the United States.

Rabbi Joel Mosbacher and Cantor David Perper led the commemorative part of the event in which the Ramapo Chorale, under the direction of Professor Lisa Lutter, and the Adult Choir of Beth Haverim Shir Shalom sang beautifully.

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